Kingsman: The Secret Service

“Kingsman: The Secret Service is a lively, dashing and amusing motion picture that smartly spoofs and slyly celebrates the James Bond spy-film franchise. Based on the graphic novel The Secret Service, the cheeky but compelling thriller filmmaker Matthew Vaughn also takes a blunt stab at British snobbism, with a talented but lower-class young fellow as an aspiring international man of mystery.

“That would be Eggsy Unwin, a son of an operative but not an unlikely candidate to carry a poison pen himself. He’s played charismatically by Taron Egerton. The excellent Colin Firth is Harry Hart, a long-time member of a wealthy crime-fighting operation unaffiliated with any government. Code-named Galahad – Kingsmen are named after the knights of the Round Table – Hart is the natty chap who grooms Eggsy as a gentleman spy.

“Firth as Hart is an elegant killer – a right Gene Kelly, dancing with a bulletproof brolly. Hart’s nemesis is Richmond Valentine, played by a jaunty, lisping Samuel L. Jackson. Like any Ian Fleming rogue megalomaniac worth his weight in idiosyncrasies, gold and good manners, he tangos with his suave secret-agent counterpart.

“But here comes the fun: Valentine brings up classic spy-action genre, mentioning cliché elements and then dismissing them. Though Valentine does have the requisite lair, exotic sidekick killer and outlandish scheme. He’s a tech billionaire and disheartened ecocampaigner whose desire to save Earth involves a deep culling of the population. The exaggerated plot involves the kidnapping of celebrities and dignitaries, and a mind-warping mobile app designed to induce a worldwide murderous rage among citizens.

“Kingsman, in the end, is an appealing film about upward mobility and learned nobleness that nearly rises to a 007 level – a classy comic homage, with a fanfare finale that is literally mind-blowing.” - Brad Wheeler, Globe & Mail